Kaylee Felio spends her days inside the numbers of parts departments, helping managers fix the one line item that quietly bleeds profit all year long. As Sales & Marketing Manager at Parts Edge, she's talked to enough dealerships to know exactly where obsolescence problems actually come from — and why most "solved" problems aren't solved at all.

Here's the uncomfortable truth this episode exposes: most dealerships think their obsolescence is "handled." It's not. It's aging. Right now. While you read this.

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What we discuss in this episode:

• The real number nobody wants to say out loud, what percentage of obsolescence is actually normal, and why the industry-standard answer might not be the right target for your store
• The silent killer behind most obsolescence: a special-order process most parts departments don't even know is broken
• The DMS trap — how switching systems (or inheriting one from "two managers ago") can hand you a mess you don't even know you own
• Protected vs. non-protected inventory — the distinction that trips up more dealerships than people realize
• What separates the dealerships that stay ahead of it from the ones scrambling at year-end write-off time

If you run a parts department, oversee fixed ops, or sign off on year-end write-offs without knowing exactly why they're that size, this episode will change how you look at your next inventory report.

The dealerships getting this right aren't smarter. They're just paying closer attention to the things that actually move the number. Kaylee tells you what those are.

Listen to the episode featuring Kaylee Felio for even more insights!

Enjoying The Fixed Ops Roundtable Podcast? Please leave a rating and review 👇

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fixed-ops-roundtable/id1608656237

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/15HHYoyvCo1PSFwYn02UXY

Thanks, Kaylee Felio

Connect with Ted Ings and the Fixed Ops Roundtable:

• Register for the next Fixed Ops Roundtable Event
• Ted Ings on LinkedIn
• Center for Performance Improvement

Paul Elliott leads the dealer practice group at Insurance Office of America, where his team has placed over $35 million in premium protecting more than 350 franchised and independent dealerships across the country. If anyone in the industry knows exactly how dealerships bleed money on claims that never had to happen, it's him.

The FTC just sent 97 warning letters to dealerships. Yours could already be on that list and you wouldn't know it.

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What we discuss in this episode:

In this episode, Paul walks through four real E&O claims that cost dealers serious money, and every single one started as a small, forgettable mistake. A finance manager who typed one wrong APR. A digit transposed on an odometer reading that turned 27,000 miles into a lawsuit. Hail damage that wasn't covered because nobody checked if the policy actually got bound. A repair that got fixed, but never disclosed.

None of these dealers thought they were taking a risk. That's exactly why they got sued.

Paul breaks down what actually protects you when a claim like this lands on your desk, and it isn't a bigger insurance policy. It's the two-minute habits most dealerships skip: the second signature, the printed vehicle history report, the one phone call that confirms coverage before the customer drives off the lot.

If you run F&I, service, or recon and you've never asked "could this come back on us," this episode is the 45 minutes that answers it before a customer's attorney does.

Listen to the episode featuring Paul Elliott for even more insights!

Enjoying The Fixed Ops Roundtable Podcast? Please leave a rating and review 👇

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fixed-ops-roundtable/id1608656237

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/15HHYoyvCo1PSFwYn02UXY

Thanks, Paul Elliott

Connect with Ted Ings and the Fixed Ops Roundtable:

• Register for the next Fixed Ops Roundtable Event
• Ted Ings on LinkedIn
• Center for Performance Improvement

Dave Anderson is the CEO & Co-Founder of Evenflow AI, a scheduling platform that's syncing in real time with dealership DMS systems and posting 20-30% revenue jumps for the stores using it. He's not new to this conversation either — if you were at NADA in Vegas this year, there's a decent chance you already caught his name floating around.

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What we discuss in this episode:

On this episode of Fixed Ops Roundtable, Dave sits down with Sarah Vantine and Ted Ings to go after a scheduling habit almost every dealership still runs on: counting cars. Four advisors, four appointments every 15 minutes, all day long. It looks organized on paper. Dave walks through the math on why it's actually bleeding gross profit before the first advisor even checks a car in.

He's got the data to back it up. A Toyota store's 30-day variability chart. A Honda store where overloaded days dropped hours-per-RO from 1.9 to 1.7, and what that costs across a hundred repair orders. The number that should stop a service manager cold: dealerships running the old way are only capturing about 70% of what their shop could actually produce.

If your shop swings between drowning in backlog and standing around with nothing to flag, this one's worth the 40 minutes.

Listen to the episode featuring Dave Anderson for even more insights!

Enjoying The Fixed Ops Roundtable Podcast? Please leave a rating and review 👇

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fixed-ops-roundtable/id1608656237

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/15HHYoyvCo1PSFwYn02UXY

Thanks, Dave Anderson

Connect with Ted Ings and the Fixed Ops Roundtable:

• Register for the next Fixed Ops Roundtable Event
• Ted Ings on LinkedIn
• Center for Performance Improvement